A review by filemanager
Kingmakers: Year One by Sophie Lark

3.0

I'm not entirely clear on the official difference between YA and NA, but in my personal definition, YA is where the characters in the book are high-school aged, and NA is where the characters are university or college-aged. So, by that definition, this book would be New Adult, and I've always had a hard time with New Adult books, because I can never really relate to them. I find the characters are always too immature, or too mature.

In the case of this book, I found the characters to be too very immature, though to be fair, they were fresh out of high school. I also wasn't a fan of the character art that was at the end of some of the chapters, the art style wasn't my thing at all. Some of the art near the end was very pretty, but didn't actually depict the scene of what happened in the book very well.

By about 30%, I noticed that the story was reminding me of Fourth Wing a little bit, just without any dragons. Probably just because of the "four quadrants, and part of a school" part of the story.

At 37%, and only by reading someone else's review, did I find out that the Kingmakers series is actually the second story arc, and should really be read after the author's Brutal Birthright series. (Kingmakers seems to be king of "Brutal Birthright series, the next generation", as it's all the kids of the characters of the first series.) GAH I wish I had known that, I would have read that series first to really have more depth into these characters! A little author's note or something at the very beginning as a 'heads up' would have been nice. sigh! This series can be read on it's own, but I would have liked to have that additional background, because the family's backgrounds and feuds and things does come into play.

In the end, it was a fast-paced, entertaining read, which was great. No slow parts, no boring parts, I was always interested to see what would happen next. I definitely want to continue the series, but first I want to go back and read the Brutal Birthright series!